I 



THE BREATH OF LIFE 



WHEN for the third or fourth time during the 

 spring or summer I take my hoe and go 

 out and cut off the heads of the lusty burdocks that 

 send out their broad leaves along the edge of my 

 garden or lawn, I often ask myself, "What is this 

 thing that is so hard to scotch here in the grass?" 

 I decapitate it time after time and yet it forthwith 

 gets itself another head. We call it burdock, but 

 what is burdock, and why does it not change into 

 yellow dock, or into a cabbage? What is it that is so 

 constant and so irrepressible, and before the sum- 

 mer is ended will be lying in wait here with its ten 

 thousand little hooks to attach itself to every skirt 

 or bushy tail or furry or woolly coat that comes 

 along, in order to get free transportation to other 

 lawns and gardens, to green fields and pastures new? 

 It is some living thing; but what is a living thing, 

 and how does it differ from a mechanical and non- 

 living thing? If I smash or overturn the sundial 

 with my hoe, or break the hoe itself, these things 

 stay smashed and broken, but the burdock mends 

 itself, renews itself, and, if I am not on my guard, 

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